I Am Never Broken
by StarSky
Summary: A marching band catagory.....oh, I'm gonna have fun with this. ^_^ Seeing as how this catagory is filled to the brim with musical maladies, I'll put in something new. Something with a little...color. And none of you are TRUE band nerds if you don't know w


A.N. For years, I have haunted Fanfic.Net and the stories contained herein. And NEVER have I noticed a `Marching Band' category until a friend of mine pointed it out a few days ago. I feel so ashamed. SO, to make up for these horrendous slight, I'll submit my one story. Granted, it's not a band story, as I have not been in band since 8th grade. This, my dear readers, is a story from the other side of the marching field. The color guard aspect in particular. And while it doesn't even have any events that take place on a field, it does show how the devious marching band program lures in it's potential victims. Crucial thing to know: This story takes place in South Jersey. Home of raging heat, frostbitten winters, and quite possibly the most.........uncomfortable place for a full season marching band participant. Oh, how I loved every second of it. And I'm not even sure if I'm being sarcastic or not.  
  
I Am Never Broken  
  
If there's one thing that I have ever learned, it's that you can never predict when fate will, on a whim, decide to throw your old, normal life clear out the window. Fate, it seems, has a passionate love for discord and mayhem. Just when you don't expect it, Fate will sneak up behind you, whack you over the head, and say, "Open your eyes, kid. I've got a brand new game for us to play!"  
  
At least, that was what my last semester of 8th grade showed me.  
  
I was reasonably happy then, excited and a tad bit nervous about going to high school the next semester. Everything was going along normally. I was going to school, attending the few interesting classes I had and suffering through the tedious ones. My after school schedule was as jam packed as ever with cheerleading, numerous dance classes, peer consoling, student government, and my friends. Then, the new year came and with it a storm of changes.  
  
My parents told me that we were going to move to Florida. The state of tourism, retirement, and professional golfing. I was going to be leaving my friends, my ~life~, behind that coming fall. To say I was pleased with this decision would be to say that the tiger was pleased with the annoying kid that keeps poking at it saying "Look at the pretty stripes!"   
  
I was told to quit all my after school activities, which ~truly~ did not make me any happier. In fact, I spent every single day from February to May ranting like a lunatic and going into a rather scary state of depression. I was so intolerable in my boredom and anger that my dad told me that if he ever suggested something like that again, I am free to hit him over the head with a brick. Or to simply ignore the advice.  
  
By May I still wasn't used to the idea of moving, nor had I grown any fondness for the it. I was so absorbed with my own problems that I had even drawn away from my closest friends for awhile. It's amazing, really, that I even noticed what two of them were doing on that mediocre, and yet life changing day before gym class.  
  
Then again, I'd probably have noticed Jen and Jill clumsily dancing around the girl's locker room even if I had been cloaked from head to toe in a veil of apathy. As it was, they immediately caught my attention when they actually started ~leaping~ across the floor, attempting to do ballet moves that had learned when I was eight. They talked about all the fun they had the day before as they twirled and laughed like a pair banshees.  
  
Needless to say, I was greatly worried for their sanity. When I told them this, they just laughed some more.  
  
"No, we're not nuts," Jill had told me with the slightly smug air of someone who has been let in on some important secret. "We're just talking about the guard clinic we went to last night."  
  
That I hadn't a clue as to what she was talking about proved just how far away I had slipped from my friends. "Guard clinic?"  
  
"Yeah, you know, the color guard? The girls with the flags when the marching band performs," explained Jen. "They had a clinic yesterday at the high school. They taught us a whole bunch of stuff about spinning flags and dance moves and-"  
  
"They taught dance? At a free clinic?" I interrupted.  
  
Jill nodded. "Yup. They spent, like, an hour on dancing stuff and an hour on flag work."  
  
At this point, Jen's eyes lit up in what I now fondly call the Brilliant Revelation. "Hey, you're really into dance, right?" she said to me. "So why don't you come with us to the clinic today? It'll be loads of fun and I bet you'll like it. Won't you come?"  
  
And that is how I got introduced to wide wonderful world of the color guard. For the entire two weeks of clinic, I thought of nothing else. Here was something for me to to practice, to work on, to keep my mind off things. For those two wonderful weeks, I forgot Florida was even a state. But of course, good ole Fate had to have it's say. My lighthearted days were going to be cut very short.  
  
After the free clinic, the guard hopefuls had a choice: tryout for the guard with all it's commitments and responsibilities or go home. I went home. Remembering that I was to be moving in the fall, I didn't see the point in joining something that would last until winter.  
  
So it was that on the day of tryouts, I was sulking in front of the TV, wrapping myself up like a cocoon with resentment and despair. Until my dad literally lifted me up by the arm, dragged me out of the house, and into the car without even bothering to turn off the TV.  
  
When I asked if he was in his right state of mind, all he would care to say was, "You are ~going~ to that damn tryout." He refused to say anything else. Unable to deal with silence right then, I had turned on the radio. "...worry is wasteful and useless in times like these, I won't be made useless, won't be idol with despair..."  
  
The song was "Hands" by Jewel. To this day, I hold great thanks to that one song. And I really don't care if that sounds corny or not. It lifted up my depleted spirits just when I needed it. I walked into the tryouts more optimistic than I had been for months. I felt confidant and prepared for anything. I believed that I could do my best.  
  
Four days later, I got a call from Irwin Liss, the color guard instructor. Out of 30 girls, I was one of 7 who made it on the team. In October my parents moved to Florida: I stayed with my grandmother to finish the marching season. I was on national TV during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with my guard and band. When I moved to Florida, I joined the color guard in my new high school, making it as much a part of my life now as it was then.   
  
After all is said and done, I only have one thing to say; thank you Fate. You changed my life in the most amazing way possible. Even if I did have to suffer through numerous 12 hour practices and no more free weekends. It was worth every minute of it.  
  
"My hands are small I know, but they're not yours, they are my own, and I am never broken."  
The song "Hands" is copyrighted to Jewel. All rights and privileges go to her. I have made no money with the use of this song. 


End file.
